The steel for the spreader angles and plates has been delivered and the team has been working on fabricating those pieces. The plates and angles will run along the walls, floors, and ceilings edges in order to evenly spread the load throughout the wall/floor/ceiling when the threaded rods are tightened down. Each plate and angle has to be cleaned, holes torched, and then coated with a sealant to prevent weathering. Once the steel is finished, the team can begin processing the wood for the walls and ceilings using those plates and angles as templates.
As the pod begins to become a reality, the issue of properly staging the construction process to be as efficient as possible is becoming an important topic. To that end, the team decided to fabricate the trusses before beginning to build the pods so that the roof can be immediately installed once the walls and ceiling are in place to prevent the wood from being exposed to the environment for any length of time. It is to this end that Jim Turnipseed and Turnipseed International have been extremely helpful in this process. Not only was all of the steel for the project donated but the team was also able to use Turnipseed International’s welding shop to fabricate the trusses and other steel elements of the project. It was a welcome break from the wood processing to learn about steel and how to weld.
The whole process only took about 5 days. The team spent the first two days cutting down all the members of the trusses, the purlins, the runners, and the plates. The next day, with the help of the men working at the shop, they laid out the truss design on the warehouse floor and welded together a jig. This allowed the team to easily slide the members of the truss in place then weld together each joint. 2 days later, 11 trusses were completed and transported back to Newbern!
Stay tuned for updates as the team returns to Newbern and puts this steel to good use!
Already missing the shop,
The Metalworking Massers
Soundtrack: Dirty Paws | Of Monsters and Men